# rancher/rke

Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE), an extremely simple, lightning fast Kubernetes distribution that runs entirely within containers.

Repository: https://github.com/rancher/rke
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/rke
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-07-24T16:50:47+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 93/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 94, release rhythm 87, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3234, "days_push": 40, "days_rel": 91, "gap_med": 7, "n_releases_24m": 40}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3296, forks 590 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:55.547493+00:00)

## What it is
Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE) is a CLI tool that installs and manages Kubernetes clusters entirely within Docker containers, using a simple cluster.yml configuration file. It is now end-of-life, with version 1.8 being the final release and users encouraged to migrate to RKE2.

## Use cases
- bootstrap a kubernetes cluster on bare metal with docker
- install kubernetes from a cluster.yml config file
- set up a high-availability rancher cluster
- deploy kubernetes without kubeadm complexity
- upgrade and manage existing rke kubernetes clusters
- provision multi-node kubernetes over ssh

## When to choose
- you maintain an existing RKE 1.x cluster and need the final supported release
- you need a container-based Kubernetes installer on legacy infrastructure already running RKE

## When to avoid
- starting a new Kubernetes deployment - use RKE2 or k3s instead
- you need long-term support or security updates
- you want a Kubernetes distribution without Docker dependency

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: maintenance
- function: container-orchestration, deployment, cli, infrastructure-as-code
- domain: cloud-computing, infrastructure-as-code, self-hosted
- platform: windows, cli, cross-platform
- tags: kubernetes, kubernetes-installer, rancher, end-of-life, rke2-successor, containers, devops, linux, macos, docker

## Member repositories
- rancher/rke (main) score 93

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:55.547493+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T07:22:43.017237+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/rancher/rke (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:55.547493+00:00, sha 0c98b8fbcc87)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.